Comments by "doveton sturdee" (@dovetonsturdee7033) on "The History Chap" channel.

  1. Do you remember the Admiral Nelson in 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea?'
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  2. Or, Amethyst might simply have been en route to Nanking, to replace HMS Consort at the British guardship at the Embassy there? Don't suppose you considered that?
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  3. Actually no. HMS Amethyst was ordered up the Yangtze River to act as a guardship for the British Embassy in Nanjing. There was no intention to provoke anyone.
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  4. The irony is that Mary Seacole never made any of the fantastical claims which the 'Agenda' now puts forward on her behalf. Her autobiography is honest about her aims and ambitions. The Agenda isn't.
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  5.  @adisura9904  No. The video has the title The Life & Career of Admiral Lord Nelson.' I don't recall that career involving any actions against Indian or Chinese forces. If it did, please feel free to inform us, of course.'
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  6.  @adisura9904  You were the one bleating on about the Europe-centred nature of the video. I simply explained why, even though it should have been obvious to you.
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  7. ​ @adisura9904  'dude you misread I think.' Noy at all. I simply replied to your grumble. Where in your earlier posts did you even mention the Dutch?
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  8. It certainly used to, which perhaps explains why a number of British 'governments' have gone to great pains to destroy it.
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  9. How was it a defeat? Britain was not at war at the time.
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  10. A shame for your comment that the accusations were first made in 2007, apparently at third hand. Still, these days, such claims may be made without the need for incidental extras such as proof.
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  11. I wonder how Captain Hardy, who was six feet four inches tall, managed? I am six feet two, and was in constant danger of harm for the deck beams, which were atound five feet nine inches at most, when I last visited HMS Victory.
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  12. HMS Teazer played HMS Concord. By the time the film was made, Amethyst herself was due for scrapping, and her engines no loner functioned. For many of the scenes, HMS Magpie, a sister ship was used. Magpie had a splendid history in WW2 as part of Walker's 2nd Support Group. Happily, the few scenes in the movie provide some memory of a gallant warship.
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  13. The Komet, a German raider, crossed the Arctic Ocean in July-August, 1940, and thence into the Pacific. It was assisted by Russian ice breakers. Logistic support was afforded by German naval supply ships, however, while the Komet was preparing for the crossing via the Northeast Passage.
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  14. Because, until December, 1941, there was no war in the Far East.
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  15. A battleship with a speed of 17 knots at most would have been little use to Cardock.
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  16. Except that thet were not sent to an active war zone, but as a deterrent.
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  17. 'Graf' actually means 'Count'. The correct name of the ship was 'Admiral Graf Spee.'
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  18.  @RodFleming-World  They were designed, during the time of thev Weimar Republic' to meet the 10,000 tons restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles. The intention was that they would operate in the Baltic, or against French troop convoys in the event of a war between Germany & France. The French response was the Strasbourg class. The 'Deutschlands' were slower than eight inch cruisers, either French or British, and not armoured well enough to resist 8 inch shells. The most cost-effective commerce raiders produced by Germany were the nine auxiliary cruisers, or extensively converted merchant ships. ' if they'd got in amongst the Atlantic convoys, Britain would have lost the war.' Not really.
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  19. You seem to know a lot about what 'the British' know or don't know, or, indeed, what they talk about. Nor do you seem to have read Volume IV of Churchill's History of the Second World War.' Actually, India was of greater strategic importance than Australia, largely because India was in imminent danger of invasion, something which never applied to Australia.
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  20.  @cgku  Bombing raids on Darwin, indeed. But there was never the slightest threat of invasion. Put simply, it was a logistical impossibility.
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  21. @giorgipiorgi Look out! If you annoy him, he will tell you about the Argentinian Air Force sinking HMS Invincible in 1982. Four times, I believe.
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  22. Captain Hardy, I believe, was around 6' 4" and probably spent his days in Victory with a permanently bruised forehead.
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  23. Why? Of the 122 soldiers of the 24th Regiment present at the Battle of Rorke's Drift, 49 are known to have been of English nationality, 32 were Welsh, 16 were Irish, 1 was a Scot, and 3 were born overseas. The nationalities of the remaining 21 are unknown.
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  24. But, of course, the English won the one which mattered. As they frequently did.
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  25. Easy to say with the benefit of hindsight. Cradock had a Ship of Force, the pre-dreadnought HMS Canopus, but she was too slow to keep up with his cruisers.
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  26.  @andrewstackpool4911  Perhaps because Britain was not at war, and the shelling was unexpected?
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  27. Why, then, was Cradock a 'bad officer?'
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  28. Really? After Jutland the High Seas Fleet barely emerged from the Jade again, and certainly never risked confronting the Grand Fleet.
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  29.  @formwiz7096  No, but as a result the HSF became merely a fleet in being, and the Northern Patrol starved Germany into revolution and defeat, and the HSF into mutiny & surrender, all behind the shield of what you apparently suggest was the 'defeated' Grand Fleet.
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  30.  @formwiz7096  Who really cares what the ill-informed public did or didn't think? The Admiralty knew the truth of the matter. More importantly, so did Admiral Scheer, or he would not have gone straight to the All Highest, warned him that the HSF should not be risked again, and urged the re-introduction of unrestricted submarine warfare.
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  31.  @formwiz7096  Simply incorrect. The HSF sailed twice more in 1916, but returned to the Jade very quickly upon receipt of reports that the Grand Fleet was approaching. 19 August, 1916. The intention was to raid the British East Coast near Sunderland. At 1215 a Zeppelin mistakenly reported a squadron of British light cruisers as a squadron of battleships. Scheer turned away, and when at 1435 a U-Boat reported the actual Grand Fleet around 65 miles north, Scheer wisely turned for home. On 18/19 October, 1916, aGerman sortie was abandoned almost before it had begun, after SMS Munchen was torpedoed by the submarine E38.
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  32.  @formwiz7096  Feel free to chexk my facts in any reputable history of the naval history of WW1. I won't write more as I know that I am correct.
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  33. Actually, 2.5 millions joined the allied side, without any suggestion of conscription. Perhaps what had happened at Nanking alerted many to what liberation by the Japanese would really mean?
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  34. The US carriers were absent on (legitimate) other duties.
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  35. I have a copy. It is superb, and some scenes stand comparison with Eisenstein.
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  36.  @unclestuka8543  You mean just like how the British sued for peace between June 1940 & June 1941? Oh, hang on a minute. They didn't, did they?
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  37. Make the most of Nelson whilst you can. The National Maritime Museum a year or two ago asked a Woke Queen, Lucy Worsley, to 'reassess' Nelson. I wonder what that might mean?
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